Cinnabar
by XxhyacinthxX
Summary: The more brilliant the vermillion - the deeper the curse, and the more potent the power. In a divergent course of reality, Kushina gets a cheerful Uchiha prodigy as her student.


The battlefield is roaring.

Bracing himself, Shisui props his teacher's corpse to shield himself from the hundreds of rock shards flying at him at deadly velocities. There's tears running down his face, but he doesn't stop to wipe them away. Blood splatters his already grimy face, but his tense expression doesn't change. This is war.

There's not enough time.

Summoning every bit of strength he had, he flickers in an inhumanly fast speed behind the Iwa shinobi, and with a deft movement, slices his head off with his tanto. Faster, he needs to go faster. Shisui sends chakra to his feet, and with a burst of speed, flips backwards in a show of aerobics to impale that enemy shinobi who thought him vulnerable for his young age.

He's still not fast enough.

He lands, gracefully skidding on gravel full stop when Shisui's gaze connects with his teammate, sees the red flower blossoming from where Ryuga was impaled. Oh, the irony. Was it him, or did his tears taste like blood?

Unnoticed, a pinwheel spins.

Without stopping to think about it, his fury directs him so that his hand flies to form rapid seals and blows and torrent of fire so hot that the enemy's skin is ripped and seared into ashes in the span of seconds. Shisui scans the field for his remaining teammate, and he sees her broken limbs splayed, neck twisted, and fair expression distorted in agony. His tense demeanor breaks to a moment of heartbreak. All around him, Konoha shinobi lay in muddy fields like broken dolls with their strings cut.

He's alone.

Paraded as a prodigy, Shisui was already several years younger than most graduated genin, so he did his best to laugh and smile, to reassure them that he's a normal person like them. That it's okay to be friends.

Yet, it didn't matter now. Everyone he cared for is dead. His immediate family was long sacrificed for this war, and now his only friends he worked so hard to have is gone as well.

He can't. Shisui can't help it - his eyes feel like they're on fire - and with them - everything comes down in black flames. Man, woman, child. He chokes on nothing. There's blood running down his face. The whole battlefield comes rushing down in a surge of Hellfire. The child takes a deep breath, tastes the ash and soot in the air.

It still feels like a nightmare.

. . . . . . . . . .

An arriving Konoha team skids to a stop in horror. They see an inferno of black flames, a graveyard of bodies and ashes, and enveloped in fire, Shisui meets the Captain's gaze, a wiry tall female with wary eyes. "Report, what happened." It is a demand, not a question.

He cracks a slight crazed smile _(he's alone and it's his fault - he's not fast enough_) and one of the squad members flinches. Shisui opens his mouth to speak - and he falls. There's not enough chakra output to sustain his small body.

. . . . . . . . .

There's the soft beeping on a machine, the ticking of a clock, the hum of an air conditioner. The air is stale, and Shisui falls back asleep.

The next time he wakes, he meets the solemn Hokage sitting at his bedside. He opens his dry mouth silently and is handed water. Gulping it down greedily, Shisui still notes the stress lines on the Hokage's skin, the taut way the man holds himself. Absentmindedly, he concludes the war is still far from being over.

"Shisui-kun, if you please, what happened?" The boy nods, not wanting to waste his leader's time.

"My team were on the C-ranked courtier mission to one of Konoha's bases, and around dusk the base was attacked by Iwa nin. We sent out messengers but I doubt they made it out. Of course, all the sensitive data is wiped out while we waiting. Konoha fought despite being outnumbered and after..." Shisui pauses, his head bowed down. " -three hours most the entire base was wiped out. There was some stragglers, so we tried to retreat by making the tunnels as a lot resort, but was unsurprisingly found. Everyone that didn't die from the first attack was wiped out. I'm not really sure what happened after that...I think my Sharingan set everything on fire?" Shisui looks down in his cup, wondering why the Hokage's presence was needed when they were neck-deep in war. Couldn't they use another shinobi to interrogate him?  
"The medics did an in-depth inspection of your eyes. They say that should you use that technique repeatedly - Shisui-kun, you will go blind." Sarutobi Hiruzen states, after a brief bout of silence. "Fugaku tells me that it is an evolved form of the Sharingan called the Mangekyo. Formed from grief and responsibility, and interestingly enough, you're the first Mangekyo user in many generations."

Shisui's lips curve upwards, despite his better judgement, murmurs bitterly. "Cool new eyes no one has for my friends. Worst bargain ever." The Sandaime Hokage huffs, and there's a barest smile on his face.

"A weapon borne from blood is still a weapon. You will gain a new sensei, and under her tutelage find a way to prevent damage to your eyes when you use it. Now, more than ever, we require every card we can get to decisively end this war."

"Yes Hokage-sama." Shisui looks at Hokage's eyes, and notices that aftermath of those Iwa nin is pointedly not mentioned.

For shinobi, it's the unsaid that says more than what's said will ever be. And according to this meeting, he will be watched by Konoha's upper echelon - for better or worse.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

On a bright spring day, Shisui meets an enthusiastic woman with flowing hair the color of blood. Her name is Kushina Uzumaki. She's nothing like his first sensei, but then again, no one would be. "We'll have a lot of fun together databane!" There's not a hint of unease in her expression as she smiles at him though. Good start.

Shisui mimics the expression, "It's a pleasure to meet you Sensei." He bows, and watches Kushina's aghast expression at his formality.

Maybe she could be better.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Shisui shifts slightly, watching a flock of crows disperse in the clear blue skies. "Stop moving!" Kushina sits across from him, a calligraphy brush balancing between her lips, palms streaming electric blue colored chakra over his eyes. "...hm. Try again Shisui-kun."

Shisui obeys, and his onyx eyes brightens into a brilliant red, tomoae spiraling into pinwheels. His already excellent eyesight intensifies and intensifies, sending him so much visual stimuli that it becomes painful. He wonders if this is what the Hyuuga can see, as Shisui notices tiny flecks of deep red and orange mix and interweave with the normal blue of Kushina's chakra system.

His eyes flicker down to her belly, where that strange corrosive chakra seems to be coming from. "Oi. Shisui, are you listening to me! Stop moving!" Kushina drops a fist on his heads, and he startles.

"Ah, sorry...Kushina-sensei?"

"Hm?" Kushina's eyes were still narrowed, focused entirely on the doujutsu. Shisui hesitates, and watches his teacher's violet eyes, only to be suddenly, jarringly drawn to a chamber of water, where he sees grinning set of gleaming teeth. A creature wrapped in chains howls, and he-can't-breathe. His chakra spikes, as does his heart rate and Kushina frowns. "What's wrong? What happened?" The Uchiha opens his mouth, snapped back in reality, feels the afternoon breeze rustling his curls, sees rich greenery surrounding them - and gasps, heaving for air.

"Nothing, it's nothing. Probably just a panic attack. It happens." He grins, out of habit. Inside the privacy of his own mind, he evaluates and discounts every single probability.

A chakra beast the size of a mountain.

Chains, Uzumaki chains? The infamous sealing ability of the Uzumaki clan.

The Sandaime Hokage's ruthless tendency to use every single weapon no matter how many dangerous.

The puzzle pieces fit together, but he doesn't all the pieces yet. He tilts his head, and studies his teacher carefully. Well, at least, he knew why a hazard like him got placed with her now. Kushina purses her lips in return, expression creased in concern. After a mutual thoughtful silence, Shisui singsongs, breaking their peaceful stillness, "If you keep frowning like sensei, you'll get wrinkles!"

Kushina twitches. "Shut it. We're going to start on the basics of sealing now, so pay attention you little brat." She roughly rustles his hair, and flicks him on the end of the calligraphy brush. "No slacking off allowed!"

Shisui smiles cheerfully "Sure thing." He pushes the memory of the monster away to figure out for a later date.

Hours later, his head is spinning. Sealing is convoluted, filled with no right answers and required complex critical thinking every step of the way. It's the kind of art that you need to put hours in, but might not get anything in return. It requires hours of practicing imbuing his chakra into perfectly written characters, and Shisui kind of understands why there's so few sealing masters in the world now...

Simply put, he loves it.

Shisui always enjoyed solving a problem that no one could understand, and with his team's death pressing in every passing moment - the distraction is sweet relief. Much to Kushina's confusion, he throws himself into it. Was she expecting for a sealing lesson to be a punishment? How strange...

"I expect this to be done by tomorrow." Kushina tidies the piles of scrolls that he painstakingly practiced on.

"Yes, sensei."  
"I have some good ideas for your eyesight problem, so don't be late!"

"Yes, sensei." He agrees peacefully, and Kushina narrows her eyes, suspicious. Amused, Shisui adds, "I haven't been really up to talking lately, but I'll get better." He bows.

"See you tomorrow."

Unbeknownst to him, his teacher sighs. "Minato had it hard huh."

. . . . . . . . . . .

EXTRA: KUSHINA UZAMAKI

Kushina asks for a genin team. She still hasn't quite healed after Obito and Rin's deaths, but she's seen too much death. Kushina wants, no, _needs _to remind herself why she's fighting - to protect, not to slaughter. She needs a reminder of that future, that light at the end of the tunnel. It's selfish, but she's stopped caring a long time ago.

She ends up with a little Uchiha prodigy, whose expressive smile doesn't hide the hint of darkness in his eyes. Shisui is the strangest Uchiha she's met. What kind of talented self-respecting Uchiha can smile without restraint? (barring Mikoto of course, but that's because she overruled her genes with pure awesomeness, Obito also doesn't count - he's a black sheep, harmless.)

"A unique one." Shisui mutters, and promptly gets an order to do five hundred pushups in return. No one backtalks Uzumaki Kushina.

He's a bundle of contradiction. Shisui is an Uchiha who had a sense of humor, but is also the only one who burned an entire field of Iwa shinobi in his grief. There was about a hundred shinobi on that battlefield, enemy and Konoha alike. Only a little boy escaped.

Kushina has a feeling that Shisui-kun ended up with her simply for the fact that Sarutobi could watch the two ticking bombs more easily when they were together.

"What's with the constipated expression Kushina-sensei?" Shisui asks, his face tilted in faux innocence. The two shinobi sits cross legged under an old oak tree, a scroll perched between them. Kushina scowls, and drops a fist on his head,

"Silence, minion. Now, for the matrix sealing and how to accommodate for the different elemental qualities we begin with-." The lecture finishes and Kushina watches as Shisui practices his calligraphy on the chart. Her crimson hair dances in the breeze, and sunlight streams from the green leaves. They're stuck on a medical leave, Kushina because the war is cooling down, and the seal on her belly is becoming unstable with all the deaths she dealt, and Shisui for his questionable mental stability and inability to control that Sharigin upgrade that apparently no Uchiha has.

Weeks pass by, and to her horror, Shisui catches on to sealing almost as easily as Minato did, and now she's wondering what kind of monster she accidentally made as she watches the chaos that for once wasn't totally her fault.

Shisui is laughing, Fugaku is yelling, Mikoto's eyes are wide in wonder, and Itachi mulishly reaching out for floating sweet that Kushina gave him just a foot out of his reach. Everything is floating in the air - furniture, food...people.

Shisui had somehow concocted an anti-gravity seal and stuck all around the Clan head's house.

Kushina lets out loud and clear laugh, it rings out in the air, easier and freer than ever, and thinks - hey, this isn't too bad.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


End file.
